Venture Capital UK

Venture Capital represents over 170 UK-based private equity and venture
capital firms, the vast majority of all such firms in the UK. The Venture
Capital UK is the public face of the industry providing services to its
members, investors and entrepreneurs as well as the Government and media.

The most comprehensive source of information on the UK venture capital and
private equity industry on the internet"

What is venture capital?

Venture capital provides long-term, committed,
risk sharing equity capital, to help unquoted companies grow and compete.
It seeks to increase a company's value to its owners, without taking day-to-day
management control. Although lenders (eg. banks) have a legal right to interest on
a loan and its repayment, irrespective of the borrower's success or failure, the
venture capital investor's returns are dependent on the growth and profitability
of the business. Owners will need to sell some shares in their companies
(generally a minority stake) to the venture backer, who may seek a non-executive
board position and attend monthly Board meetings. Venture capital
investors not only provide equity capital, but experience, contacts and advice
when required, which sets venture capital apart from other sources of business
capital.

Questions to ask yourself Before considering raising venture capital you
need to answer these questions:

Do you have high growth ambitions for your company? Are you willing
sell some of your company's shares to a venture capital investor in order to be
able to increase your stake's value to more than that of your original holding
within a few years? Venture capital firms only target companies with real
growth prospects, driven by a skilled, ambitious management. So if you and your
company fit this description and you answered 'yes' to the questions above,
venture capital certainly is worth considering.

Venture capital resources Investors have a wide range of investment
preferences which include the amount of capital you require, your company's
investment stage, industry sector and location, and these will affect the
sources you target. Investment stages include: seed, start-up, early stage,
expansion, management buy-in (MBI), management buy-out (MBO) and
rescue/turnaround situations.

As a basic guideline there are two main sources of venture capital with
broadly different investment preferences - venture capital firms and business
angels.

The majority of venture capital firms target firms requiring investment of
over £100,000, mainly in expansion stage companies and MBOs/MBIs. The overall
average deal size in 2009 was £5.6 million, although 51% of companies backed in
2009 received sums of venture capital of less than £1 million. There are some
specialist and regional firms which invest outside these parameters.
Business angels tend to invest between £10,000 and £100,000 in start-up and
other early stage financings - the average investment in 2008/9 was around
£50,000.

How to target a source of venture capital effectively Raising any type
of capital needs research and strategic targeting. Before approaching any source
of venture capital you will need to have:

a good business plan with an executive summary; assessed that venture
capital is suitable for your business; know how much venture capital you
require and what it will be used for; selected for approach only those
venture capital sources that meet your requirements.

The Venture Capital UK 'Directory', 'Sources of Business Angel Capital' and
'A Guide to Venture Capital', together with professional advisers (some are
listed in the Venture Capital UK 'Directory') will assist with this process,
please read the Venture Capital UK publications, research and press releases
for further information, and you can search the Venture Capital UK 's
'Directory' of members on line.